MG Rover staff accept pay offer

Workers
at MG Rover have called off a planned strike after accepting a new pay deal.

Just
over half of the 3,000 car workers at the Longbridge factory in Birmingham
agreed to a new two-year deal which restores sick pay to its full amount and
includes another half a per cent on top of the original pay offer of of 2.2 per
cent.

BBC
Online reports that the rise next year will be pegged to the rate of inflation.

Sick
pay at the plant was paid at 75 per cent, but MG Rover says it will now give
full sick pay as long as absenteeism does not rise above 2.75 per cent.